Women writers have often developed a complex relationship to language,subverting and appropriating established meanings and creating new ones. Inaddition, cross-cultural situations may create a crisis in the relationship tolanguage and identity but also allow for the development of a critical point ofview. Language can thus be the ground for women writing in such situations toreinvent themselves and negotiate new relations of power between genders andcultures. Linking the personal and the political, the resulting constructionsof identity strike a balance between emotional responses and discursivestrategies. They are historically situated and precede, parallel or respond toemerging discourses that either naturalise or deconstruct national languagesand sexual identity. How do women writers at different times construct their cross-cultural orplurilingual experience in situations of emigration, exile, colonisation,belonging to a linguistic minority, etc. ? What new articulations of identity,freedom and power does a cross-cultural context allow for, and how do writingand language become instruments of change? Does the relationship between genderand culture in language help reinforce domination or does it allow for new typesof autonomy and self-definition ? At a more general level, how do women writersrespond to the necessity of negotiating plural identities and multiplelinguistic references ? What conservative or progressive politics of gender andlanguage do these strategies imply?This conference aims at better understanding the changes in the identity, rolesand practices of women writing at the crossroads of languages from the 18thcentury to the present day. It will promote exchanges between various criticalperspectives and disciplines currently focusing on these questions:postcolonial studies (Françoise Lionnet, Gayatri Spivak), feminist translationtheory (Sherry Simon, Luise von Flotow), trauma studies (language anduprooting), the socio-historical study of women writers (see the Chawton HouseConference “Traductrices, commentatrices, médiatrices : femmes écrivains1700-1900”), ethnopsychiatry etc. The writings of authors such as Assia Djebar,Nancy Huston or Gloria Anzaldua will also serve as a theoretical framework.

We welcome paper proposals in both English and French in literature or filmstudies. The following aspects and their interdisciplinary developments willbe included:

- Women writing between languages and cultures- First language and gender- Writing strategies at the crossroads of languages- Gender and translation

200-250 words proposals in Word format should be send to greg_at_lettres.unige.chby the 31 October at the latest.